


no peace i find

by bmblb



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: -oprah winfrey voice- YOU get a dog! and YOU get a dog! and YOU g, Bucky Barnes Gets a Dog, M/M, steve rogers gets a dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 04:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmblb/pseuds/bmblb
Summary: The one where Steve gets a dog, and Bucky and the dog don't get along, until suddenly they do. That's Bucky's dog now, Steve.





	no peace i find

Steve says “Bucky, don’t you think it’d be nice to have a dog around the house?” in a way Bucky has come to know means “Bucky, I’m getting a dog and there’s nothing you can do about it,” so when he comes home three days following that short and pointless conversation with the ugliest fucking dog Bucky has ever seen, Steve has it in himself to be at least a _little_ apologetic about it.

“She was on the street outside our building, Buck,” Steve says. “She’s been there for days and I just couldn’t pass her this time,” Steve argues. “I promise it’s only until we can find her another home,” Steve pleads—Bucky, however, is not an idiot, and knows how fast _that_ is going to snowball, so when Steve goes to teach his morning and afternoon life drawing classes in Manhattan Bucky goes out and buys food, bowls, collars and leashes and every other Minimum Necessity Dog Thing thing the Petland employee recommends (and begrudgingly throws in a toy or two after she needles him about it).

The thing is that Bucky wouldn’t mind having a dog if he wasn’t so sure that he’ll be the one taking care of it most of the time. Steve goes out for scheduled classes and sporadic missions; he goes from only being gone hours to having to leave for weeks at a time. And this _thing_ —a giant mix of what he can only assume is some sort of bulldog and the devil—is the rowdiest, dumbest dog in the world.

She’s become notorious for destroying anything soft and fuzzy that she comes across, including Bucky’s new slippers, several throw pillows, and, in one horrifying and unforgettable experience, the considerably expensive leopard print lime green fur coat Natasha had left innocently draped over the arm of the couch while visiting.

On top of that, the dog is unbelievably stupid. Her favorite activities are chasing her own tail and jumping into bed with them any time they’re starting to feel even the slightest bit frisky, and she's untrained, watching Steve with blank eyes whenever he tries to get her to respond.

Worse than anything, she takes to Bucky pretty much immediately. She likes Steve well enough, and Steve _loves_ her, but whenever Bucky’s in the room she freaks out like he’s Jesus Christ incarnate. Normally something like this would be funny, it would be something he would tease Steve over endlessly just because he can, but he’s far too irritable about it to bother.

After two weeks of the dog (still unnamed, because Steve’s stubbornly holding onto the fact that it’s not a permanent thing, Bucky, he’s just still _looking_ ) lounging around their apartment and throwing a wrench into Bucky’s altogether structured, practiced existence, he’s pretty much positive him and the dog are never gonna get along.

**

Bucky wakes with a start after a nightmare that has him broken out in sweats. It’s nothing unusual—memories of HYDRA being warped in his brain with his current life, leaving him confused and scared and little feverish. Usually Steve’s here to comfort him, but he’s been gone for four days now on some mission in Uruguay. Bucky just groans and moves to stand up from the bed. There’s no way he’s getting back to sleep, and it’d be pointless anyway, considering the time illuminating red from his alarm clock: 04:58.

He opens the bedroom door and the barking starts immediately. Bucky jumps at the sound, abruptly recovering to deliver a withering glare at the source of the noise. “What the fuck,” he mutters, scrubbing at his face with a hand.

The dog walks over to Bucky and nudges at his leg, panting and curious. He sighs and walks past her into the kitchen. Their fridge is woefully lacking in edible substances considering his avoidance of the grocery store (Bright lights, freezer aisles, crowds, cashiers that have to _speak_ to him, no thanks.) and calling in for a delivery, but he manages to scrounge up enough stuff to make a pitiful turkey sandwich. He leans back against the counter and chews mechanically, staring out the window above the sink blankly, barely noticing he’s eaten it all until he realizes he’s about to chew on his fingers.

The dog makes a sniffling noise and Bucky looks down, only then seeing her sitting at his feet, staring up. “What,” he asks mildly, “you never seen a guy make a post-nightmare sandwich before?” She nudges his leg again in response.

“You have to piss or something?”

She stares at him blankly before yawning, as if she’s bored with his questions. Bucky says, “Fine, then go away.” No movement except for her blinking. “Go _away_ ,” Bucky repeats, irritated. “Go play or sleep or something.”

Bucky wipes his crumb-dusted hands on his shirt and she stands, walking to his other side and poking him with her nose. He ignores her and goes to walk back into the living room, which she reacts to by letting out a shrill bark. Flinching, he whirls around incredulously. “What is your problem?”

She pants, trotting over to the couch and jumping onto it to lie down. He groans. Steve has been doing this sort of movie time with the dog (and Bucky, but that’s definitely debatable, considering how Steve devotes all of his attention to the _dog_ ) every evening, putting on the cartoon movies he likes so much as well as a genuinely absurd amount of comedies.

Bucky always tells him it’s weird since the dog has no idea what’s going on—or so he thought, it seems. She very much looks like that’s where she wants to do this morning. Bucky feels weird when he begrudgingly sits down beside her and pulls up Hulu—usually this is a Steve-and-Dog thing, first of all; second of all, he hates to comply to what she obviously wants here, but a movie _would_ be a good distraction from the HYDRA-torture-panic-shitstorm brewing at the back of his mind right now.

He selects a romance film called _Pizza My Heart_ , praying it’s exactly as cheesy-stupid as it sounds so that he can direct his disgust at anything except himself. He makes a mental note to call his therapist later about that one and can feel his inner Steve swell with stifling pride.

The movie does the trick. Bucky unconsciously gets so caught up in it that he actually finds himself rooting for the couple at some point, much to his own abruptly self-aware revulsion. When it ends, he plucks the remote off the table and turns the television off. “In case you were wondering,” he mutters to the dog, “ _this_ is why people fucking hate Jersey.” She sniffs in what Bucky assumes to be agreement.

He feels much lighter than he did before and feels almost wronged because of it. The dog is watching him quietly and he narrows his eyes at her. “Did you do this on purpose?” 

She makes a soft noise and lays her head against his thigh. “It did help a little,” he admits. “If that was your plan.” He looks down at her thoughtfully for a moment before quickly patting her head twice with his right hand. “Thanks, dog. I guess.”

They sit in comfortable silence until Bucky nods off, head leaned back against the couch and hand resting on her back. He doesn’t wake up when Steve gets home a couple hours later from his mission, but when he eventually does Steve smiles at him from the other end of the couch like a total dope and moves to kiss him sweetly, hands forgoing a sketchbook to pet the dog sleeping between them.

**

It happens slowly. He starts to feel a lot less bitter when left alone with her—they watch _Ocean’s Twelve_ or he takes her with him when he has to go to the store for something. Most of the time they just sit on the couch and doze or read while the news plays on mute in the background. When Steve gets home from missions or a charity event he’s attending, he curls up beside them and practices his charcoal work.

Three months have gone by and Steve hasn’t mentioned finding the dog a new home in over two weeks. Bucky’s honestly surprised he let that ruse go on so long. She still doesn’t have a name, though.

Bucky and the dog are curled up under a blanket watching some home design show when the door unlocks and Steve comes in. He left that morning for a short-notice mission in Ontario and it’s almost ten now. The dog clambers off the couch to meet him at the door.

He’s still in his gross dirt- and blood-speckled uniform, and usually Bucky would send him to the shower to clean up immediately to avoid a mess, but Steve looks so exhausted and weary that Bucky decidedly ignores it and instead says, “Come sit down.”

When he joins him on the couch, Bucky raises an arm to gingerly wrap around his waist, pulling him into a casual half hug. “Wanna talk about it?”

Steve sighs. “Maybe later,” he says tiredly. “What are you watching?” Bucky hooks an ankle around his and leans in. He’s explaining the couple and their mundane jobs before dropping the budget bomb that leaves Steve immediately gawking—”What kind of graphic designer makes enough to buy a house for nine-hundred thousand dollars? Does she design the Vatican’s website or something?”—when the dog jumps onto his lap.

Bucky doesn’t stop talking about the episode while she wiggles around to get comfortable; he even reaches down absentmindedly to brush at the fur on her head while he speaks. He only starts to realize when he sees a smile form and slowly grow on Steve’s face—it’s reason enough to not pull away. Getting Steve to look at him like that never ceases to make his chest feel warm, even when it’s over something as silly as him petting their dog—and, wait, when did it become _their_ dog?

**

“Hey,” Bucky mumbles, eyes still closed against the morning light streaming through their window. Steve hums in acknowledgement from where he’s beside him under the blankets, back against the headboard as he looms over a sketchbook. The soft scritches of his pencil are the only other sound in the room.

“How would you feel about Georgia?” Steve’s pencil stops moving. Bucky opens his eyes to find Steve looking down at him quizzically.

“Georgia?”

“For the dog,” Bucky explains. “Georgia. We could call her George.”

And now Steve looks so excited that Bucky has to hold down an amused grin. “It’s been three months,” Bucky explains. “We can’t call her ‘the dog’ forever, you know.”

Steve says, “I guess not,” and then he snickers a little. “Georgia, though? You been listening to Mildred Bailey?” Bucky can’t help the grin that spreads on his face then.

“ _Some sweet day when blossoms fall and all the world’s a song_ ,” he croons, and Steve laughs, eyes bright with happiness, so he continues, “ _I’ll get back to Georgia ‘cause that’s where I belong_.”

“You don’t belong anywhere near Georgia,” Steve teases. “You couldn’t name three cities in Georgia.” Bucky shoves him half-heartedly and pulls him close, face buried against his right thigh. “Like you can say anything, Rogers. You aren’t any better.”

Steve scoffs. “You forget my rampant patriotism and polite, modest demeanor. They’re both very Georgia-like, aren’t they?” Bucky looks up and they both crack a shared sarcastic, disbelieving grin.

“Well,” Bucky drawls, “you can take the dog out this morning if you’re feeling so polite. She’s scratching at the door and I need a shower.”

Steve perks up even more at the prospect of seeing her as if he hadn’t right before they went to bed the night before. “Sure. Me and George can go on a walk and _you_ can clean your gross hair.”

He kisses Bucky swiftly and gets his bottom lip nipped at for the sass, pulling away with his nose scrunched up from how wide he’s smiling. As he walks out the room, Bucky can hear him mumbling, “ _Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through_...”

**

When Natasha forgives George for the fur coat incident after her more destructive phases have long past and is able to come around again without fear for the mortality of her clothing, she tells Bucky that Clint would love to meet her.

Bucky knows that Clint is Hawkeye, one of Steve and Natasha’s work buddies that doesn’t come around as much. Usually the only ones who frequent their apartment are Sam and Natasha, so they’re the only ones Bucky’s had more than a single stilted conversation with. Natasha seems to think it’s a good idea to bring him around, though, and Bucky’s dubious enough that she reveals her actual reason: Clint’s dog.

“It’d be good for Georgia to have a friend,” Natasha claims. She outright refuses to call her George because she thinks it’s ridiculous. “And Lucky doesn’t get out enough, either, because Clint is away so much.”

Bucky probably would’ve declined if she wouldn’t have added that. He can’t imagine if he and Steve were _both_ gone a lot, having to leave George alone except for the occasional neighbor to check on her or take her out for a few minutes. It makes his chest hurt a little, and so he says, “Okay,” and Natasha smiles slightly in a way that shows her approval.

Clint comes over a few days later. Bucky has never seen him outside of a few times at the tower when he’s gone there with Steve. All of those times he’d been in uniform, but he isn’t now. Instead, he’s wearing a shirt that’s on backwards and has a stain on it and his hair reveals the fact that he just rolled out of bed. He has a bandaid on his right temple. He greets Bucky with a grin and a “Hey, man,” minding Bucky’s personal space in a way that makes him lower his hackles just a little bit.

Behind him stands a dog that’s sandy brown and reaches Clint’s hip in terms of height. He has only one eye, and when he walks around Clint to see Bucky better, he moves with a slight limp. “This is Lucky,” Clint says, beaming down at the dog. “He’s happy you invited us.”

The unspoken _and so am I_ makes Bucky smile a little despite himself. “Hey, Lucky,” he says softly. George is standing behind him, peering curiously. She’s not barking in alarm which Bucky is very thankful for. 

Lucky seems to light up immediately upon seeing her, and Clint taps his back leg with his shoe. “Be chill, Luck,” he warns. “She’s not used to a bunch of excitement.” The dog stays pretty calm, walking over to George as he pants happily. George tentatively sniffs him and seems to immediately decipher that he’s not a threat; her tail starts to wag and when she turns around to go to the living room, Lucky follows.

“Glad to see they like each other enough,” Clint says. “Lucky tends to be pretty good with other dogs in general, but you can never tell how they’re gonna react to him.” Bucky hums in response, nodding. He gestures for Clint to follow and says, “Steve’s in Manhattan teaching a class right now.”

“I know.” Clint smiles understandingly. “I can go if you want, but I thought maybe we could just order a pizza and watch a movie or something while they play? My apartment’s kind of a trash fire right now and my friend Kate refuses to let me hang out there until I decide to clean it.”

Bucky stares, puzzled. “Your friend kicked you out of your own apartment?”

“Yeah. She keeps saying it’s so gross that toxic mold must be growing there by now due to the sheer amount of dirty dishes and beer bottles everywhere.” He shrugs. “She’s probably right. I’ll clean it tomorrow, maybe.”

Bucky shudders at the thought of such a mess. He and Steve keep things pretty clean out of sheer habit from their time in the military, and too many socks on the floor can be enough to make Bucky’s anxiety a little haywire. “Okay then,” he says. “Let’s order that pizza.”

When it gets there, they settle on the couch and eat, throwing _Scrubs_ on despite the fact that most of their attention is directed towards their dogs as they run around on the floor. They trade grins and knock out three boxes of pizza before the sun sets.

**

Steve and Bucky spend a warm Sunday at Central Park. George keeps stopping to greet every dog they run about with deciding sniffs and happy pants, which makes them both laugh and roll their eyes.

“How many dogs can she smell before she gets sick of it?” Bucky wonders.

“No idea,” Steve says. “It’s pretty entertaining.”

They stop at a bench to eat sandwiches, pressed close. Steve has the leash set at the longest setting so that George can still run around.

Steve laughs suddenly. “I forgot to tell you what happened earlier.” Bucky quirks an eyebrow as he chews, and Steve continues on. “A kid recognized me when I was waiting outside our building with George while you locked up and he asked what her name was.” He covers his eyes with his palm, laughing again. “Buck, when I told him, he was like, ‘ _Wow, like the president?_ ’”

Bucky snorts. “Oh, we fucked up. If that gets leaked, Tony will never let you live it down. _Ever_. I don’t think I will, either.”

Steve looks scandalized, but he’s still grinning. “ _You_ were the one that named her that. It’s not my fault!”

“I’m so glad I did, now,” he says. He can’t help the laughter that bubbles up all of a sudden. “ _Fuck_ , that’s funny.” They both collapse into uncontrollable giggles about it.

Once they’ve finally calmed down, they wipe their eyes and grin, leaning against each other in comfortable silence. They finish off their sandwiches and watch George run up to another dog as it passes, sniffing and exciting it as well.

Steve says, “You know, Buck,” in that earnest way of his and Bucky looks at him from the corner of his eye and decides to humor him. “What?”

“It’s just.” Steve motions towards George as he and the new dog start to chase each other around. “This just makes me think, now that George is acclimated and all, maybe we can talk about bringing in a _John Adams_ , you know?” He glances at Bucky. “I mean, we have the space, and—”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Steve blinks, mouth still open as if he hasn’t fully comprehended the fact that he doesn’t have to argue his case more. Bucky suppresses a smile. “That’s a _hard_ maybe, Rogers. Don’t get any ideas just yet.”

He plans to hold to that right up until Steve grins him like he’s won the lottery, and Bucky knows he’ll bring in ten more dogs with stupid accidentally-patriotic names if it means that Steve will look at him like that every time.


End file.
